


Somewhere In My Memory

by Sir_Bedevere



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Character Study, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, POV Outsider, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:13:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25631851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sir_Bedevere/pseuds/Sir_Bedevere
Summary: Four ghosts that Robin watched move on -or, four ghosts that left Robin behind.
Comments: 31
Kudos: 72





	Somewhere In My Memory

**_Scavo - The Celtic Warrior_ **

The beast stalks him through the trees. It doesn’t stop. It doesn’t rest. 

Scavo runs. The beast runs. Scavo walks. The beast walks. It is relentless. It will run him to the ground. He is being hunted. 

This is the dark. The dark after the light. The dark after life.

Scavo knows this place. These are his trees. He wanders the land, runs from the beast, and watches. He watches the kin he has left behind. They do not see him, or hear his voice. He cannot touch them. It is a torment he has never known. 

If this is what comes after, then where is his mother? His father? They are not here waiting for him. He is alone with the beast. 

If it wanted him dead, why does it not kill him? Why does it follow, and watch, but leave his throat untorn? Scavo cannot understand it. 

He follows his wife, his sons, his daughter. He watches them at their work, and their play. When they sleep, he lays down and closes his eyes, and pretends that he does not know when the beast comes to stand over him. 

When it does him no harm, he stops running. He goes out to the furthest edges of the village, picks his way through the trees. The animals can see him, and they flee in terror. He cannot follow behind them, beyond the bounds of the village. As though a strong hand is holding him back. 

The beast often stalks him out here, and one day Scavo throws back his head and screams. Beats his useless hands against trees which offer no resistance to him. When he turns, his hunter is so close that the Scavo can see into its eyes. It is almost like looking at a man. 

Scavo opens his mouth, voice raw from screaming. 

“What is this place?”

The beast steps back, hands raised, as though it is afraid of _him_. Then it grunts. Raises two fingers and grunts again. Presses its fists together. Looks at him as though he should speak this mysterious tongue.

Scavo does not try to talk with it again. It is a madness to think it should answer him. 

When the bright light comes, Scavo is swept away, and the last thing he sees are the eyes of the beast. 

**_Astrid - A Danish child_ **

Astrid does not like the woods at night. Mama never let her go there alone. She knows now why Mama was scared. It is because of the bear. 

Astrid is hiding in the trees, now. Mama has been crying for days, and when Astrid goes to her, Mama does not want her. Astrid does not know what she has done wrong, so she is hiding until Papa comes home with Arne. They will know what to do. 

There is a strange growl, and Astrid sits up. 

“Björn?” she asks, wrapping her arms around herself. “Is that you?”

He steps out from behind the trees, and Astrid smiles.

“You scared me.”

Björn does not speak. He is a clever bear, but not one with words. He makes funny noises and moves his paws in strange ways, looking at Astrid as though she speaks his funny tongue. 

He sits down next to her, and puts his paws on his knees. Astrid copies him, and he smiles. She likes his smiles. He has nice sharp teeth. 

“Papa will be home soon,” she says, like she does every night. Björn listens like he knows what she is saying. 

“Perhaps Mama will stop crying soon, and come to find me.”

Björn growls, then reaches out with his paw and touches Astrid’s hand. He is a very kind bear. He knows when she is sad. She has to wrap both of her hands around his paws, her own hands are so small. When Mama stops crying, she will show her that the scary bear is nice, and no one needs to be afraid of the woods. 

In the old stories, Odin sometimes pretended to be a bear. Astrid asked Björn if he was Odin, but he just growled. She thinks Odin would speak her tongue. And Björn smells like a real bear, like the furs that Uncle Bo once brought from the north. When Astrid sleeps now, Björn sleeps at her side, and he does not scold her for holding his fur too tight in her hand. She does not mind the smell. It is like the cloak that Papa wears when he goes to the council.

One day, Astrid hears a commotion, and goes to see if Papa has come. Björn follows her, but waits in the trees when she tells him to. All of the women are gathered as the men march into the village. Papa and Arne and Uncle Bo are there and Astrid tries to run to them, but then there is a noise like a storm breaking and she looks up to see a bright light. Björn is calling to her in his funny noises, and then she hears “As-trid!”

Her kind bear calling her name is the last thing that she hears. 

**_Matilda, a Norman woman_ **

This is not paradise. 

She stood over her own prone form and watched as the priest gave her the last rites. She watched her body removed and buried at the wooden church on the edge of the estate. She watched John weep awhile, and saw how he named the babe Geoffrey for her father. Then the child died, but he is not here. That is how Matilda knows this is not paradise, for all the words said the little children did not sin. 

She does not know why she is forced to endure this, watching her husband grieve. When he packed up to go to court, she tried to follow him, but something held her back. So she went to the church and now she spends hours at prayer, asking to be forgiven for whatever sin has given her this cursed existence. 

She is on her knees once again when the ape-man appears at her side. These days, she only wrinkles her nose at his smell. There was a time he frightened her more than any painted devil she had ever seen. 

“Man. Come.” the ape-man grunts, and sure enough, the priest comes through the door a moment later. Matilda sighs and moves to sit upon a pew. The priest that John so trusts has proven himself a villain, since she began watching him. If only she could punish him. 

There is a poor box in the church, only small, for the people of the estate and the nearby village are humble themselves. But the priest takes the little that they share, and puts it in his own purse. 

“Bad man,” the ape-man says, then looks to Matilda for her approval. He does not speak the words of her tongue well, but it seems as though he is trying to learn, and she has no one else to speak with. 

“A very bad man indeed.”

They sit side by side and watch the priest count out the measly handful of coins. This is the man who gave her last rites. She is sure his wickedness is the reason she has been cursed. She thanks God in her prayers that at least her son has been spared. 

It is a long while before John returns from court, and he brings with him a new wife. She is already heavy with child, and Matilda watches over her as she comes to the church to pray. Matilda does not mind John marrying another. It is how things are done, and he is yet young. Besides, the young woman is pious and sensible. 

When she births her boy, he is named Robert, and he grows quickly. Matilda and her ape-man watch him at play, and rejoice the day that the child finds the priest at his pilfering and reports it to his mother. 

“Rob, good boy,” the ape-man says, and Matilda thinks it strange that she is not afraid of his sharp-toothed smile. 

“A very good boy. Clever, clever Robin,” Matilda says, as proud as if the child was her own, for he is half John and she has always loved him. 

God’s judgement comes soon after that, after so many years and years of purgatory. Matilda does not know where the light will take her but surely God is in it. Did not the angels come to Mary in such a blaze of light?

**_Brother Hugh, a medieval monk_ **

On his deathbed, Brother Hugh asked his brothers who the strange man watching him was. Standing half in shadows, the man was, but the others told him that no one was there. But he saw the man, and looked at his dark eyes, and cried out as he died. 

And then he awoke. 

His own mortal form lay upon the bed still, his brothers at prayer around him. Hugh got to his feet more easily than he had done in years, and walked straight through them. A spirit. He was a spirit. Then was this hell? To watch the living? 

Then the strange man stepped forwards, and Hugh stumbled back. He was barely a man. But then he opened his mouth and spoke with almost the voice of one. 

“Me. Robin. You. Name?”

Remarkable. As though a beast had stood upon its hind legs and spoken a verse. 

“Brother Hugh. What is this place - Robin? It seems like home and yet I am not known here.”

Robin seemed to be listening carefully, then tapped his chin. He was thinking. 

“You. Die. This. After.”

It seemed a great effort for him to speak the words, as though they had been torn from his throat. 

“Is this hell?”

Hugh did not know what sin had brought him here, so far from God’s grace.  
“What hell?”

Robin did not have the answers, and he does not have them still. If he is here to guide Hugh’s footsteps, then he is a very ill informed host. 

Instead, Hugh paces, and he prays. He does not know how long it has been since he died, but it seems a great long while. His brothers have died since, some of them, but they have not stayed as he has. God has forsaken him. And yet he prays, for that is all he knows. 

He prays and he teaches. Robin is a reasonable companion, gentle and curious and eager to learn. Hugh speaks to him and tells him stories and tries to teach him to pray. Robin gets to his knees happily enough but the words are too much for him, and besides - his only worship seems to be of the moon. Godless, but not evil. Indeed, Hugh is sure he would have run mad if not for his strange friend. 

It has been many years of purgatory when the plague comes. There is a new abbott, and new brothers, and they are frightened. It is God’s judgement they say, but they treat the sick all the same. People die and they die and none of them stay. 

“It is the end of days,” Hugh tells Robin, as they listen to the wailing of the dying, and the whispered, desperate prayers of the monks who try to save them.

“Never end,” Robin says. “Many people die many time. More people always come.”

Hugh does not argue with him. Robin is crude, but wise, and Hugh only hopes that what he says is true. He prays, more than he ever did before, and tries to rejoice each time a soul moves on, free of their suffering. 

It is that prayer, he is sure, which finally frees him in turn. There is a light, and he is sure he hears the voice of God, forgiving him and calling him home. 

He’s only grateful that Robin is there. He takes his friend’s hand and kisses it farewell. His only regret is that he must leave him. 

“You go now,” Robin says, and bumps his forehead against Hugh’s. “Me wait some more.”

**Author's Note:**

> Robin makes me emotional, okay.


End file.
